President Bush carried the lower-income states of the South and Midwest in both elections, while the Democratic candidates carried richer states in the Northeast and West Coast, the authors note, with no reason to believe that the pattern will be much different in November.

"The paradox is that, while these rich states have become more strongly Democratic over time, rich voters have remained consistently more Republican than voters on the lower end of the income scale.''

If poor people had their own state, they suggest, it would be even "bluer'' than Massachusetts. If rich people had their own state, it would be about as "red'' as Alabama, Kansas and the Dakotas.

"If only rich people's votes were counted, Republicans would win an electoral landslide... If only poor people's votes were counted, Democrats would win overwhelmingly.''

The difference from state to state, Shor says, is the culture -- the stances that wealthier voters have taken on social issues.

"If you were to compare the wealthy across states, what really accounts for the difference in their voting behavior,'' Shor said in an interview. "It is the positions they hold on social issues.

"You take two people who are just as wealthy and compare them in the bluest of blue states and the redest of red states, the people in the blue states are going to be less religiously observant... and in the red states they are going to be more religiously observant,'' Shor said. "That's one way...

"Irrespective of their religious views, it's their socially liberal attitudes,'' he said. "What is it that makes states different. What makes states different is not only their wealth, but also their culture... You don't really see that at the lower end of the income scale... We find that economic issues are more important to them, and social issues are more important to the upper income.''

The book attributes the schism to the "polarization'' of politics in modern times. "The more polarized playing field has driven rich conservative voters in poor stats toward the Republicans and rich liberals in rich states toward the Democrats.'' West Virginia has gone Republican, suburban Connecticut Democratic. It is middle- and upper-income voters who are driving the "political culture war.''

It was generally true that the lower the average income in each state, the higher the percentage of Bush's victory in 2004, the book notes in one telling chart. Missississippi, the lowest-income of all, went 60 percent for Bush. Utah, Idaho, up around 70 percent. Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, the states with the highest everage incomes, gave Bush less than 50 percent of their votes and in the Bay State's case less than 40 percent.

Democrat John Kerry and Al Gore before him won in eight of the 10 richest states.

Yet wealthier voters still tend to support Republicans - with exit polling in 2004 showing that Bush collected 62 percent of the vote among voters with incomes over $200,000 - and just 36 percent of the vote from those with incomes under $15,000.

So how is it that Democrats win richer states while Republicans win poorer states? The authors attempt to fathom a "more descriptive puzzle of how it is possible for the rich-poor pattern to go in opposite directions between individuals and states.''

In Mississippi, for instance, Kerry won among lower-income voters, while Bush dominated among middle- and upper-income voters. Kerry carried Connecticut by winning among all groups.

"Who's been voting for Democrats in recent presidential elections? Most of the poor people in most of the country... Republicans have been winning the votes of most of the upper-come voters in almost all of the states... It is middle-and upper-income voters who drive the political culture war,'' they write, and it is in this upper stratum of society where rich states and poor states have their political differences.

Shor holds a PhD in political science from Columbia, a bachelor's degree from Princeton and served as a visiting scholar in residence at Princeton's Center for the Study of Democratic Politics. The principal co-author is The coauthor is Andrew Gellman, professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University, a statistician who has served as mentor to Shor and other co-authors of the study.

Comments

There's more to Shor's thesis than the above article suggests. From his U of C website:

“There really is this new breed of relatively liberal rich people,” says Shor. However, he warns, the limousine liberals are hardly the only wealthy individuals in this country, and to lump them all together as the media has done risks missing an important nuance.

The media are extremely powerful in shaping our perceptions, and Shor argues that it might benefit them and the country if they looked beyond their immediate environment more often. “When those media are clustered on the coasts,” says Shor, “they look around and see rich Democrats and poor Republicans. But that scenario is only true for tiny areas.”

Until wealth is more fairly distributed throughout our land, we will not truly be the great and free society that the founding fathers envisioned. While one should be allowed to "make" as much as they want, we also have an obligation to spread that wealth, so life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, may be enjoyed by all Americans. The founders of this great land never intended that the richest 5% would control 95% of the wealth. In fact, they would be digusted.

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Posted by: syj | June 11, 2008 7:56 AM
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If I were you, I wouldn't pretend to speak for the "Founders" on the subjects of freedom and wealth concentration. The Founders' generation considered indentured servitude a fair social and economic institution. Indeed, in their day, a small number of people owned a large percentage of the population in slavery. Those held in slavery owned no wealth of their own. In 1774, the top 6% of all white males (far less than 6% of the total population) owned or controlled 59% of the wealth, and the bottom 60% owned less than 10%. That trend continued so that, by 1860, 5% of the population owned 86% of the wealth. Thus, the numbers from the first century of our existence as a sovereign country were substantially "worse" than today, assuming you believe wealth concentration is bad. So, please, don't get all nostalgic or misty eyed over the Founding Fathers' views on these subjects. The truth will disappoint you.
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I am also intrigued by your views regarding the need for wealth distribution to fulfill the ideal of being a "great and free society . . . ." I question the very premises of your ideas. You idea is grounded in the notion that we can solve the problem of poverty and/or social inequality simply by wealth redistribution. That's simply untrue. We've spent trillions of dollars over just the last 20 years to alleviate the plight of those in poverty. During that same period of time, the poverty rate has remained, on average, about 13%. In fact, the four years with the highest poverty rates within that same time interval occurred between 1991 and 1994 (14.2, 14.8, 15.1, 14.5, respectively) before President Clinton sighed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996" which actually lowered the availability of welfare support. Earlier studies, notably the one by Charles Murray that he published in his 1984 book "Losing Ground," confirm the idea that throwing money at the problem doesn't solve it. Murray added up all the money spent in government programs from the late '60s to 1980 to alleviate poverty, and came up with the figure of $3.8 trillion. That figure, equal to the U.S. GNP for 1983, was enough to give every poor person $117,000. Yet, at the same time, the number of people living below the poverty line fluctuated between 11.1 and 14.1 percent. There were a lot of other factors at work during these periods of time to improve (and worsen) the plight of the poor. The bottom line is that, all other things being equal, you can't raise the mass of poor people from poverty simply by throwing money at the problem. To be sure, this is a paradox, but the truth all the same.

Not that you (or I) care, but you do the memory of Karl Marx a disservice by suggesting he would have supported such a wealth redistribution scheme. He believed in equitable pay for workers' labor, and in maintaining a common, but undistributed, ownership of all capital. That's not the same as the wealth redistribution spoken of so fondly by syj. syj's ideas appear to be inspired more by Robin Hood than Marx.

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